The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Remember how I ended my last blog entry with the words, I LOVE this? Well, not every day is total love. I keep telling myself that its going to get worse before it gets better. 


The Good:

• Progress 
• The cabinets are in and being housed in the warehouse until we are ready. Exciting!
• I chose and ordered  all the drawer pulls and knobs. I never thought THAT would be fun.
• I visited the stone warehouse and picked out a remnant piece for the master bath. There were so many cool pieces of stone to see!
• The pendant lights and an entry light have arrived. Industrial chic coolness.
• I bought all the tile for the entryway and love the petrified wood look. 
• I bought a cool little dresser that we will use for the powder room vanity with a vessel sink. (Dang, I better buy a sink)
• Our house is going to be electrically safe after all the new wiring that has been put in:)
• The creative freedom that Master Dave and Bruce are willing to give me when figuring out issues. Gotta LOVE that. They already can read the 'look' on my face when I am marinating on an idea.

The Bad:

• The continuing horrible electrical stuff that they keep finding. I am not an electrician by ANY means, but even I can see that what was done is BAD stuff. This could surely be listed in the 'good' category as well because it is being addressed.
• I encouraged Roger to meet with Jason, electrician and wiring extraordinaire, to go over the Sonos system stuff. Okay, let's just say that the quote went up from what I wanted...guy stuff.

The Ugly:

• That every single room in the entire house has been touched by this renovation. When I see Bruce heading downstairs with his saw I just need to take a deep breath. 
•  Our house is going back on the market after Christmas. Yay.
• When I have to talk through stuff from the project and my Rog just stares at my face.

You will see that the 'good' list is longer than the others. Bring on the inspectors and drywall. I am thankful for such wonderful craftsmen that I have on my team. Every visit they put up with my snarky comments and snort laugh. 

Bruce, seriously, put down the saw!

More pics next time.

Master Dave: part 8

The Rock: Part Eight

So, as Julie just wrote, she and Rog have been inundated with decisions about things which most of us don’t think about or take for granted—location of lights and switches, which way should the door swing, etc.  We were asking questions to avoid the “oops” moments later. 

For instance:  what are you doing for a vanity mirror? Julie wanted two mirrors, both centered over their respective sinks.  Lighting was going to be two sconces on either side of each mirror.  Following the plan, we would have ended up with room for three and a half sconces in order to maintain the centering and spacing. Solution was to plan on moving the vanities down the wall a bit, and building the wall a few inches longer to accommodate the move, not a big deal at all right now, but virtually impossible later. I think Bruce caught that one, but brainstorming leaves us all exhausted and wondering where the solution came from.

Probably the hardest thing for both Julie and Roger was to deal with the myriad of decisions Jason, our electrician from WER Electric (shameless plug), needed to fully customize each room for their particular needs—a difficult task considering they’ve never lived in the house.  “Is the couch going here…or here? ‘Cause I need to put a floor outlet in, and then there’s the lighting…and did you want one or two switches controlling these lights?  I can separate them, y’know.  Or did you want a remote, I can put it here…”  They both looked over at Bruce and I several times, and we just giggled, and shrugged.

We are officially in the rough-in stage, and we should be done with the framing, but we are not, so each trade can only go so far until we rush over, stick a wall up then sprint to the next place.  There were lots of time-consuming details associated with the structural beams, and have been playing catch up ever since.  I think today, the 15^th, we’ll have all the walls up and done.  The plumbers look to be done having located a new drain for the kitchen and completely new everything in the bathroom.  Jason’s guys have pulled more than 5000 feet of new wire in replacing everything upstairs and adding what I just head counted as 40 recessed cans—I’m probably off b y a few. The mechanical guys have a few details to complete, but…

We’re hoping to call for inspections tomorrow, but it’s snowing like crazy out there, so it’s hard to say who will show up and when.

NOTE: Inspections have been called for today, the 17^th BUT we were looking at the drywall in the bedroom and thought it a good idea to remove it—there were cracks and holes and hey, let’s just start off anew, do a little prep for the drywall sub, etc.  We immediately found the reason for the cracks: whoever installed the bay windows (and I’m going to hunt you down) decided that headers weren’t that important, so they cut part of the original 2 x 12 header at the door and cobbled in a 2 x 6 header across the window.  Then they “forgot” to nail it to a stud, so there’s essentially nothing holding up a five foot section of ceiling and roof except drywall.  And, I guess if you’re going to go to that kind of trouble, you should bury a junction box in the wall by taping it over and pretending it was never there.

We’ll try to fix that this morning, before the inspector shows up—it’s a gray area for the inspector as it’s nothing we’ve touched or done, and therefore not subject to his review, but it’s not right and we all know it. And it’ll give us a chance to dismember the other bird’s nest right next to the framing gaffe.  It’s a big one!

Master Dave: part 7

The Rock: Framing part 1 

The hardest part about the framing requirements based on the design will be coming up this week: lifting each portion of each header up and into the ceiling. The second hardest part was getting them into the house! 
Lumber was delivered on Tuesday: 2 x 4’s were stacked in the garage, and the beam materials were left outside until we hauled them in on Wednesday. With snow looming on the weather reports, we were pressed to get everything inside. When our hard working hand, Mike, called in sick, the two old men looked at each other and said, “Nope.” We commandeered my son, Cameron, and Julie’s youngest, Audie, for some muscle! 
Each beam consists of three individual LVL (laminated veneer lumber). They are all 16” tall by 1 ¾” thick, heavy and unwieldy. Beam one is going in the kitchen and is 24’ long—the three components went in the front door and were leaned against the soon-to-be-removed kitchen wall. The dining room header is 18’ long, and they slid through the garage entry and found a home against the chimney chase. The bedroom beam is 28’ long and presented a problem: in addition to being the longest and heaviest, it had to go through the front bedroom window, in and through the house, out the back door, then back in as it cleared a bathroom wall before the trio found a home. Happily done before noon! 
We started on the middle wall between the kitchen and living room as it’s the only one we have final engineering for. We built temporary walls to support the ceiling and rafters above, then we cut out the kitchen wall. We marked our lines for where the new beam would go and started cutting the joists back. We also cut a hole in the drywall in the entry—we’ll push each LVL up and through before threading it back onto the post in the opposite wall. It’ll be heavier than it will be complicated, and we hope to have them all installed, and all the framing walls in, by the end of next week. We’ll see!

Hey, what's that under there? UNDER WEAR?!

Am I a decent decision maker? You betcha. But by the end of last week I was tapped out and couldn't even decide what shoes to wear. To say that things are picking up speed on the project is an understatement. The demolition was exciting, but now walls are taking form, wires being pulled and plumbing plumbed. 
    The feat of placing the enormous beams was a whopper of day for the guys. With the hands of a couple young bucks (my Audie and Dave's son Cameron) the triple beams were lifted into place. The new structural beams were deemed necessary after a structural engineer inspected the roof and found not-to-code issues that made me worried about a big storm coming and the roof crashing in! We are good to go and safe.

You can see one of the beams on the floor waiting it's turn.  The plastic on the ceiling covers where the kitchen beam went in and supports the roof were the wall used to be.

     The framing has begun with new discoveries. A board with 'built in 1969' and a name was found. Pretty cool!  Dave and I are compiling a time capsule with objects from this project  to hide behind the kick plate in the kitchen. Some day after Rog and I are long gone some new homeowner will renovate my kitchen and find all the things that have made this house special. Speaking of things that make this house special...the eggs were deemed to be wood pecker eggs after Audie (who LOVES birds) found the patched hole in the siding where mama woodpecker worked very diligently to make a  place for her nest only to get the shaft when it was patched with her 6 eggs inside. Just glad they aren't snake eggs! Last week's discovery made me giggle and laugh when the picture and commentary came via text from Dave.  Picture this: at some time during this house's history a rather sizable guy was reframing the garage entry and ran out of insulation. What to do? Well, I guess rather than make a run to the hardware store I'll just take off my tightie whities and stuff them in the hole. See photos :

BIG dude. Size 44

Stuff them right in the crack. (That was a funny!)

The electricians have been pulling new wires throughout the entire top level after finding old wiring that was to scary to reuse. The canned lights were being placed and Jason, Mr. Electrician, was hammering me with decisions. "Julie, where does this switch go? How many cans here? Where does your TV hang? How many plugs in the floor? " Holy cow. Decisions were made and all the cans are in.

You can see the start of the island. 

Let there be light.

The basement is all painted and new doors are hung. Thanks to son #2, Cooper, for coming and spending the day helping dad. Rog and I still have the bathroom downstairs to tackle. Tile is our next project before we can set the new AWESOME vanity.

This is the original doorbell cover that I am
keeping.  Working my magic with a little paint so far...

Gotta have some flavor in this beige world.

We are getting excited as this place transforms right under our noses. It's a fun, noisy place to visit during the day because of the amazing crew that we have. Not everyone is cut out for this type of project, I LOVE it! 

Master Dave-part 6 Demolition complete

The Rock: Demolition final 

We left off last installment getting ready to clear out the drywall and framing in the bathroom, and the detective work continued. There were the now-familiar wiring glitches leading us to wonder if the vision statement for the previous remodelers was “What you can’t see won’t hurt…much.” Buried wires and connections, wires pulled between framing members instead of through them—just a host of little things that left us scratching our heads and wondering why that would ever be okay. As my partner in crime, Bruce, constantly reminds me, “Don’t ask. You’ll never figure it out.”
The framing gave us a few clues as to what the bed and bath floor plan may have looked like in it’s original configuration—the original framing consisted of a double top plate (two 2 x 4’s), and the drywall was butted to the framing. The newer walls were framed with a single top plate and then installed over the existing drywall. We’ve noted a number of instances where the double top plates have been cut and removed, and leaving us wondering just how many structural issues this may have created.
The plumbing drains were exposed in the floor beneath the old spa tub, and they were predictably messy. The house is old enough to have originally used copper drain and vent lines, but these have been cobbled together with two different types of “plastic” pipe—ABS (black) and PVC (white)—with hose and pipe clamps of varying sizes to the various drain locations.
The shower was a “how-to” in what not to do in pouring a pan. Note that to pour a shower pan takes some effort, so why they didn’t do it right the first time boggles the mind. Typically, a pan requires two separate concrete or mortar pours sandwiching a waterproof membrane. The first pour establishes a slope toward the drain; the membrane goes next, usually with a coat of roofing tar under it both as a glue for the membrane and also a redundant water proofing characteristic; then the final pour as the tile underlayment. The thought is that if any water gets under the tile and the underlayment, it then hits the membrane and drains into “weep holes” in the drain. This one? Membrane stapled to the plywood floor, sloped pour and tile. Water got under the tile, under the sloped pour and just sat on the membrane. And festered. Eww!
As our final planned demolition events, we are removing the bearing walls and replacing them with beams and, as we cut down the kitchen wall, we again saw evidence of framing that was removed without regard to the structural intent of the original building. We topped off our second demolition dumpster with a shake of the head and acknowledged a new meaning to Thanksgiving!!